After a month of work I'm happy to bring you the biggest update yet! Six new enemies, two more levels, a new boss, and loads more features, tweaks, and bug fixes! Hope you enjoy all the new content.
On a more technical note, steam integration has been temporarily disabled, as it seemed to be causing problems with Windows 10. I'll be working hard to try to fix this so we can have high-scores and achievements again, and hope everyone understands. As always, full changelog below
FEATURES
Two more zones; a star system and a space station
Six new enemies. The Mystic Priest, Mystic Warrior, Gun Drone, Sentry Drone, Welding Automaton, and Assault Automaton
A new boss, the High Mystic Grigori
Molten planets with fireball-spewing volcanoes
Advanced KaasTau boss for the 4th and 5th systems
A new Master item, Blood Roots. Killing multiple enemies within 10s will heal you.
Procedurally generated space stations
Merchants talk to you, making small talk and occasional hints
Mutagens to mix up your stats, both in good and bad ways
Randomly generated foreground nebulas
BALANCE
Viktor has approximately half a second of Invincibility when activating his beacon
Sentry guns in the Space Stations shoot less but deal more damage
Slightly decreased Ebzer Pickpocket speed
Fire slugs have 20% shorter trails
Optical Array has diminishing returns
Recolored and balanced the Large Brain Ooze. It leaves no trail but takes multiple button presses to remove
The time penalty to score ignores the first minute
Fixed Grigori's teleportation sprite
Adjusted message box position
Some tweaked art in the space station background
An extra destinations available from the space station
More interesting nebula shapes
Decreased odds of jungle, sentient, and scrapyard planets
Removed a decoration for crystal planets
Switched audio format for smaller file size
BUG FIXES
Steam integration temporarily disabled
Nadia's Bomb Jump challenge should track properly
Fixed 'ds_map not found' crash in space station
Fixed possible crash when shooting destroyed enemies
Fixed possible crash when shooting Crystal Moths
Fixed missing surface crash in space station
Ebzer Pickpockets always track you instead of pausing
Multiple suns display properly on minimap
Lighting scales better with multiple suns
Killing the Mastermind now increases score
Hyper Lens shows proper image
Text alignment fixed on shop items
Text on the Annihilator's HP bar aligns properly
Screen tear shader works properly on the main menu
Camera starts tracked on player in station
Larger texture pages for Windows 8+
Early Access Build #8!
Hi there! I hope everyone had a great holiday season, but now that it's over it's time for more updates! A bunch of new items, tiny bug fixes, and balance tweaks dominate this update. Of course, new items require some new deadly wildlife...
Finally, the most obvious thing for this update is a minimap in the top right of the screen. I'm not 100% sure this is a good idea, so please let me know what you think. There's still a few weird bugs floating around that I'm trying to hunt down, and here's the update log below:
FEATURES
A Minimap, showing the players place amongst the local solar system as well as planets with items, shops, and bosses.
Universal GPS and Psionic Hood now interact with Minimap
New passive item, Hyper Lens, which reveals more of the map around you
Several new active items: Fuel Reserve and Stimpack which give you a one-time-use cache of supplies, and Land Mines and Toxic Cloud for some more ways to deal damage
A new deadly enemy lurking on gas giants, the Methane Worm
BALANCE
Better looking planetary rings
Decreased Health drop rate
Bomb Crystals don't spawn on merchant planets
Fuel Pumps & Medical Stations cost less
Enemy Missiles have an indicator when off screen instead of moving the camera (This one might almost count as a feature)
Ebzer Seeker fires a regular missile instead of a super missile
Removed Fuel Crystal passive item
Increased poison tick frequency
Reduced cost of Incinerator Drones and Chance Amulet
Elastic Ooze now has diminishing returns
BUG FIXES
Fixed Quantum Resonator being permanently active
Static appears when Brain Slug'd
Ebzer Seeker is no longer resistant to explosives
Ebzer Annihilator's stun attack pauses properly
Tutorial planets have new planet graphics
No more Asteroids in the Item Shrine
Dialogue boxes pause properly
Fixed Poero Bomber's throw and hurt animations
Update #7 : Achievements!
After a long delay punctuated by a hard drive failure comes the first pass of Steam integration! Sixteen glorious achievements for all your achieving pleasure, and a global high-score board with which to show off your prowess. Most of the achievements should be pretty easy to get for experienced players, but harder achievements will come with late-game content. Please let me know if there's an issue with either the scoreboard or achievements, since this is my first time working with the Steam API.
In addition, the final early/mid game alien race has been added; the KaasTau. These machine-plant hybrids already had two enemies in the game, but now have four new spike-throwing, laser-shooting, player-slowing enemies, topped off with a deadly boss. As always, full changelog below:
Features
-Sixteen Steam Achievements!
-Scoring system with a global high-score board. I can post the breakdown of the score calculations if people are interested.
-KaasTau completed, with four new enemies and a boss
-Many planets have improved graphics, with more contrast and noise
-Audio and gameplay settings can be adjusted from the pause menu
Balancing
-Shopkeeper is immune to explosives
-Item shrines decreased to 75% chance of that item class
-Item shrine text displays for 50% longer
-Megalith's slam attack has sound
-Cluster bombs nerfed
-Better walk cycle for KaasTau Crawler
-Increased glowing planet's attack cooldown
-Ebzer Annihilator has less HP at lower levels
Bug Fixes
-Emmy no longer slides backwards on ice after dodging
-Music properly configured in audiogroups
-No crash after defeating Cyborg Salvagers
-Ebzers will dodge roll away from Nadia's melee attack
-Fixed challenge unlock issues with Viktor and Nadia
-Fixed bug where sunlight wouldn't clear between stages
Early Access Update #6
Another new character this update, Emmy Wolfe. Her jump-jet dodge gives her plenty of mobility and two machine pistols send out loads of bullets wherever you aim, albeit with plenty of bullet spread. Even more exciting are the Item Shrines; two gates scattered across the galaxy take you to a planet where you can manipulate item drops. Change the odds to drop more offensive, defensive, or utility items to fit your playstyle. Invincibility frames, new items and enemies, and extra animations round out the update, with the complete changelog below:
Features
Yet another new character, Emmy Wolfe! Unlocked by trading with Merchants, she has two fast-firing machine pistols and jump jets to launch through the air.
Item Shrines! You can bias the RNG to give you mostly offensive, defensive, or utility items. For a cost...
Idle animations after being stationary for 7 seconds
After taking damage, there's now 0.67 seconds of invincibility
Four new Advanced Items: Titanium Shield, Red Shroud, High-Tech Salvage, and Opulent Bracelet
New enemy, the Poero Grenadier
Two new encounters when using the Emergency Beacon
Occasional meteor showers in the background
Balance & Misc
Different drops for early game bosses
Increased Shield and Health Ore spawn rate
Decreased Energy Ore spawn rate
Increased Viktor's movement speed by 16%
Nadia only requires 10 deaths to unlock
Dynl Dancer has a narrower knife spread
Reflected shots are less dangerous
Fire Hive has more HP and a new fire attack
Reduced Gravity Wallet to +20% gem drops
Increased Autolaser firing rate by 16%
Chance Amulet now does +17% Critical instead of x2
Surviving minions leave after beating the Dynl Master or Grandmaster
All Poeros take 66% less damage from Explosives
Moved active items down on the GUI
More background Nebulas
Item pedestals get fancier with higher tech level
Bug Fixes
Going to the Supernova no longer crashes game
Nadia's swing size increases with range increases
Fixed typo in Blood Merchant dialogue
William's Extra Ammo challenge saves properly
Update #5.1 Hotfix
Fixed a game-crashing bug, and while I was puttering around the code fixed a few miscellaneous bugs. Some miscellaneous optimizing happened as well, simplifying some planetary effects and reducing the number of draw calls to keep your GPU happy!
-Getting critical hits while using Nadia no longer crashes the game
-Meteors stop advancing when game is paused
-If you clip into a wall, you can always walk out of it
-Miscellaneous optimizations
Update #5 - Nadia and Major Rebalancing
Wow, it feels like it's been too long since I've uploaded a build. This update was supposed to come out last week but loads of miscellaneous bugs and hardware issues delayed it until now. Sorry about that. Apology out of the way, here's the awesome news! A brand-new character, Nadia, is in the game, fighting with high-explosives and a hefty wrench. It took a bunch of work to make a melee character work, since until she came around everything was balanced against ranged characters, but she's turned out to be my favorite character (so far).
Also, there's two major balance adjustments. First, shields have been nerfed, with the maximum temporarily decreasing as you take damage and resetting with fuel use. To compensate for this, combat items have been buffed about 25%. Second, merchants give better and better trades the more you interact with them, but killing any merchant resets that progress. The goal of these is to make items more useful and give a stronger incentive for using gems. Let us know what you think of Nadia and the new changes, and here's a detailed list of update notes if you're interested:
Features
Nadia! The fourth character and first melee fighter.
Merchants now have more and better items the more trades you make. Killing a Merchant resets the trade progress.
Small 'cutscene' when defeating the Cyborg Salvagers
New active items: Psy Lattice for more gems, and Ghost Skin for some emergency invulnerability
New passive item: Morhpic Roots, which reduces stun duration
Shield debuff. Damage reduces maximum by 1, ion damage by 2. Using fuel or a recharge station resets this
Balance & Adjustments
Most combat items are 25-50% more effective
Buffed Photosynthesis Gland
Increased shield recharge rate
Updated GUI with more shield information
Slightly decreased health drops
Slower system size progression
Changed Chance Amulet and Decennial Bloom art
Viktor is significantly easier to unlock
Added Viktor's character selection art
Buffed Viktor's charged shots
Temporarily removed Broken Radio
Seed input is more responsive
More game pause when hurt
Spike Flowers have a delay and new art when exploding
Increased Poero walk speed
Faster drop-down when on platforms
Cyborg Salvagers will not summon walls if players are too close
Decreased scaling costs of Fuel Pumps and Health Stations
New platform layout with the Heimdall AI
Lowered volume of William's teleport sound
Bug Fixes
Defeating the Cyborg Salvagers properly ends the game
Cyborg Salvagers HP displays over item list
Master items now display on the GUI
Pressing "Try again" with no seed entered generates a new seed
Pausing in the Tutorial no longer crashes
Dying in mid-air no longer has the corpse instantly fall down.
Dying in the Space Station no longer rotates the camera
Fixed platform drop-down with controller
Update #4 - Seeds, Plants, and Challenges!
The biggest update yet! Several new items, from the low-level buffs to ridiculously powerful late-game enhancements. The first creatures of a brand-new alien race, the KaasTau are scattered around the galaxy as well; symbiotic plant-machine hybrids with a focus on summoning and ranged attacks.
Most exciting though, is character progression! Each character has three challenges, from resource gathering, defeating bosses, moving quickly, or finding secret areas. Completing a challenge gives items, resources, or special maneuvers. Let us know what you think!
Content
Each character has 3 challenges to complete for some extra firepower, resources, or tricks
Pause menu displays controls and play time
Seeded runs with 36^8 possible seeds
Three new basic items: Decennial Bloom, Photosynthesis Gland, and the Combat AI
New superpowerful items as late-game Boss rewards.
Three of the KaasTau
Balance
William is unlocked earlier, after reaching the Space Station
Health drops are more forgiving, with a chance of drops as long as you're not at full HP
Changed solar system sizes; smaller early game, larger late game
Increased Supernova countdown by 50s
Decreased Shield Ore spawns
Viktor's Shield Beacon gives 3 temporary shield
Shield Beacon has slightly larger radius
Heimdall AI's main cannon shots are slower and weaker
Bug Fixes
Gun recoil will no longer pull you forward
Play time no longer increases while loading or paused
Jumping between planets resets Emergency
Fire Slugs should no longer grow arbitrarily large
Emergency Beacons don't trigger on the Space Station
Update #3
Moonstrider's been out for a week now and I'd like to thank all of you for your comments, bug reports, and ideas. It really means a lot to know that people are playing this.
As for the update, it's not a very flashy one, but has a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Most obvious is that the gui will scale properly on 1080+ monitors. More important though, is that seeds are now easier to control, laying the framework for daily updates in the future. Beyond that, just bug fixes and the usual tweaks. To make up for the smallish update, here's a preview of an upcoming alien race:
Content -Lots of new enemy combinations
-Pause menu displays the seed
-Harder to accidentally quit with controller
-Tweaks to the options menu
Balance -Harder to get items from killing the Shopkeeper
-Higher chance of unlocking Viktor
Graphics -Small portrait of William added to character selection
-Crystal Moth Wings reset to default color on most planets
-Joystick icon animates properly
-Shaper Fuel Merchant animates properly
Bug Fixes -GUI scales properly on all 1080p monitors
-Improved wall collisions
-Fixed dialogue display when unlocking Viktor
-Drone displays correct cost
-Removed some obsolute music files
Update #2
Version 2 of Moonstrider is here! Some major changes this update, primarily to the game economy. Gems are a bit rarer and there should be more interesting decisions to be made. Plenty of item tweaks, a windowed mode, and all reported bugs are (hopefully) fixed. Let us know what you think of the changes!
Balance
Bosses drop no gems, slightly less health
Merchants drop more gems on death
About 5% less fuel ore spawns
Slightly increased stronger ore spawn rates
Tweaked ore refining values
More interesting options for stronger ores
Significantly buffed Incinerator Drone
Decreased Megalith stun range by 15%
Buffed the Mechasign
Killing a merchant causes no merchant to appear next level
Changed Optical Array to +33% view distance
Graphics
Windowed mode. This hasn't been extensively tested yet, so please let us know of any glitches if you're using this
Controls now visible on character selection screen
Active Use items have a blue aura
More impact when the player is damaged
Audio
Made Poero Drone and Hazard Warning sounds quieter
Fixed rocket boots sound looping on tutorial
Misc
Finishing the tutorial starts the main game
Bugs
Fixed use item icons scaling in the gui
Can no longer mine resources while upside-down
Rebound use item keys don't display when not in use
Jumping while picking up Jetpack no longer crashes
Merchant & Item boxes no longer generate a glitch item
Dynl Warrior should no longer grow huge
Version 1.1 Update
The first of what should be many updates to come! No major changes here, just fixing several audio balance issues, a bug or two, and a little bit of graphical polish to hopefully make the GUI more intuitive. It didn't feel like quite enough content to merit Version 2, so 1.1 it is. Unless any game-breaking bugs arise expect Version 2 sometime next week!
